Seven out of the 32 candidates running for supervisor this year either had their ballots flagged as “not counted” during the five prior elections or flat-out didn’t vote in some elections, according to data from the Department of Elections.
Both Jose Morales running in District 11 and Matthew Boschetto from District 7 acknowledged that they simply did not cast a ballot in recent elections.
Morales, a Democrat, who joined the District 11 race about two months ago, said he did not vote in the June 2022 primary, nor in the 2020 presidential election, in which President Joseph Biden defeated former President Donald Trump.
However, he recalled dropping his ballot at the box outside of the Excelsior Branch Library this March, and mailed in his ballot in November 2022.
Boschetto, a Democrat who filed to run in District 7 in July 2023, said that he only voted in the recent March primary and the 2020 presidential election. The candidate for local office said that he previously did not consider it important to vote for local office. He instead focused on the presidential election; he recalled taking his kids with him to see him cast his ballot.
Of the other five candidates, some claimed they voted while others could not recall if they did so. All five had their ballots flagged as “not counted” by the Department of Elections.
Mission Local looked at voting records for the four most recent elections and the 2020 presidential election. The four most recent include: The March 2024 primary, the November 2022 election, the June 2022 primary, and the April 2022 state assemblymember election for Assembly District 17, in which Matt Haney defeated David Campos.
Three candidates said they were surprised to find out their ballots were never received, including Adlah Chisti, a District 11 candidate; Jaime Gutierrez, a District 9 candidate; and JConr Ortega, a District 3 candidate. Ortega said last week that he is dropping out of the race in District 3.
When a ballot is flagged as “not counted,” it could mean one of three things: The ballot was lost, the voter failed to fill it in correctly, or they didn’t actually vote.
John Arntz, director of the Department of Elections, said voters are not notified when the department does not receive their ballot.
Roger Marenco, who is running in District 11, said he doesn’t remember if he voted in the 2022 State Assembly election.
Julian Bermudez, a District 9 candidate, said he’s not surprised that his ballot for the 2020 presidential election was not counted. Bermudez recalled that, at the time, he was in the Army in Colorado Springs, and he trusted a soldier on staff duty to drop off his ballot. That is the only election in which his ballot was not counted.
“Here in California, it is amazingly easy to vote,” said Garry South, a statewide political consultant. That makes it doubly hard for voters in California to trust a candidate who failed to vote. “You can even do it in your kitchen and send it in the mail,” said South.
Jim Ross, longtime Bay Area political campaign strategist, agreed, saying that voting in California is “as accessible as it gets.”
As easy as the process is, candidates Morales and Boschetto still chose not to cast their ballots.
“It’s never good for a candidate running for public office to not vote,” said South, who managed successful gubernatorial campaigns in 1998 and 2002 for former California Governor Gray Davis. “It does hurt the candidate.”
Boschetto, who was born in San Francisco and raised in San Mateo, and whose family has been living in the city for five generations, pleaded frustration. “I felt like I had no say,” he said. “It would make little difference voting.”
Ross thought such an excuse is “terrible,” as it shows such non-voters as “dismissive of the process.”
Morales also had his reason. “I wasn’t supporting any candidate at the time,” he explained.
But this is “not a particularly good excuse” in South’s opinion. “It’s kind of a given in politics that, many times, we are picking the one that’s the lesser of two evils,” South added.
Looking back, the two candidates — who are actively campaigning to earn votes to win this November — offered different excuses on why they failed to vote.
“I don’t think it’ll make me a bad candidate,” Morales said. He believes that a lot of voters, like himself, are frustrated with politics on both the national and local levels.
“We have to decide between these two parties a lot of the time,” said the candidate, who is a registered Democrat. “Politicians say different things among sides. But then they get elected, and they go ahead and do the complete opposite.”
Boschetto, on the other hand, said he realized it was “a huge mistake” to not vote in local races.
Now on the campaign trail, he said he doesn’t plan on hiding the fact that he didn’t engage much as a voter in the past. However, Boschetto said there are other voters who likely share the sentiments that discouraged his voting.
“I’m sure some will probably see it as a bad sign,” he said. “But I’m sure there’s a lot who will be forgiving to it just because of the fact that I think I’m not alone in these feelings.”
Even though failing to vote speaks certain truth about the candidates’ political engagement, Ross thinks it won’t be a defining issue that can cost anybody the race this year. He thinks it also depends on what kind of an election the candidate misses out on — if there are important issues being decided in it.
“Depending on the voters,” Ross added. “If you miss out on one or two, some people understand that life happens.”
South, however, wasn’t so sure.
In the 1998 governor’s race, South and his team discovered that Al Checchi — one of Davis’ opponents in the Democratic Party in the June primary and a political newcomer making his first bid for office — failed to vote in 1994.
South said when the finding was presented to a focus group of voters, the crowd was “astonished. ‘How can you ask for my vote with a straight face?'”
South said it’s true that local elections often have low turnout, and that many voters don’t pay attention to or care about who the candidates are and what offices they will hold. But he said it’s “not a good mark” for the candidates who are running to hold such offices.
“I do think it makes voters wonder why they would vote for someone that didn’t vote themselves,” South added.
If a person does not vote as a citizen, then no one should vote for them as a candidate.
JConr, we hardly knew ye.
A pitiful bunch if you ask me. If they feel voting in local elections is not important, I will make sure to find someone else to vote for.
Why should anyone vote for people who themselves have not voted? Why should anyone vote for someone who has a history of not voting in local elections? Voting in local elections is just as important, sometimes more important, than voting in state and federal elections. This is basic stuff. And finally, I find it a little disturbing that ML, and apparently anyone, can find out if any individual has voted or not in past elections. Is that really public information? What’s next? Do you find how they voted too?
First, information about one’s – anyone’s – voting activity should be private. Second, using failure to vote to discredit a candidate is a variation of the tu quoque fallacy, and reduces politics to a dumbed-down, symbolic, surveillance-state shorthand. Quick: Freedom fries! Support our troops! Flag lapel pins! Go team, my team!
I know nothing about any of these candidates, and there may be good reasons not to vote for them, but whether they voted isn’t one of them.
Crazier and crazier. Country is not working. (Not a dupe comment!!!)
Crazier and crazier. Country is not working.